Stock list format: what file to send Easy Auto

A stock list is a table with one row per part you hold and want to sell: the number on the part, who made it, how many you have and what you want for it. It is the file your stock system already prints for a stocktake, the sheet your counter staff check before they answer the phone, or the price list you send to garages. Easy Auto reads it so that when a customer asks for a part you hold, the answer comes from your list instead of from a message to you.

Every line we hold today arrived this way. As of 3 November 2026, 7 of the 18 suppliers we work with send a stock file, and together those files hold 91,328 current lines across 292 brands. The other 11 suppliers answer part-by-part messages instead, which means somebody on their side has to read and reply every time a customer wants something. A list is how you stop being asked.

First, you send the file through the upload form or by email to hello@easyauto.ae, with your business name and a WhatsApp number or an email; one is enough. If the file is a CSV, the form reads it in your browser and shows roughly how many lines it found and the names in your header row before you press Send.

Second, a person opens the file and checks it is what it looks like: a stock list, readable, with part numbers in it. Third, that person contacts you. Nothing goes live until that conversation has happened, because it is where we agree how orders reach you, collection or delivery, and how you are paid.

Fourth, your columns are mapped to ours. Your Item Code becomes our part number, your Make becomes our brand, each of your warehouse codes becomes a location with its own readiness time, and each brand spelling you use is matched to our brand list once. The mapping is saved.

Fifth, the file loads. Every row is read through the mapping; a row that cannot be sold safely is set aside with its reason recorded, rather than loaded wrongly. 17 loads between 14 September 2026 and 29 October 2026 read 172,634 rows and set aside 60. Rows are counted each time a file loads, so a list sent twice is counted twice.

Sixth, and from then on, every new file in the same layout loads through the saved mapping. A person is needed again only when something new appears: a stock code or a brand spelling we have not met, or a column we read that has been renamed or removed. In that last case the load stops instead of guessing, and the mapping is updated with you.

A line loads into our stock when it has a part number, a brand, a quantity and a price. Everything else is useful but optional. The names in your file can be anything: Item Code, Part No, Ref and Article all work, because the first time we see your file a person points each of your columns at ours, and that mapping is saved for every file you send afterwards.

The part number is the one that matters most. It is how a customer's request finds your line, and it is the column we check hardest. Brand matters next, because the same number can be sold as a genuine part and as an aftermarket part, and those are different offers at different prices. If every line in your list is one brand, you can leave the brand column out and say so in the note.

The optional columns change what we can do with your list. A genuine-number column is the most valuable of them: we turn a customer's request into the number on the original part before we search, and if your list says your aftermarket part replaces that number, we can offer yours. A cell can hold several numbers; we read the common shorthand where 31410-12300/2 also means 31410-12302.

A warehouse or stock code column tells us where each line is and how quickly it can be ready. Each code you use becomes one of your locations on our side, so a line held in your main store and a line that takes three days from a second warehouse are offered with different readiness times.

None of these columns has to be complete. A genuine-number column filled on half your lines is still worth sending: the half that carry one can be found by more requests, and the other half load exactly as they would have without it.

The 91,328 current lines we hold show what a working stock list looks like in practice. 85,382 of them carry a price (93%). 66,479 carry at least one genuine cross-reference number (73%), which is what lets a request for a carmaker's number find an aftermarket or OE-brand part. 5,775 are held as ask-first, a list sent without prices. The lines sit in 10 locations, each with its own readiness time.

The lesson for a new list is that perfection is not required. Lines without cross-references load, and are found when a request names their own number; a list without prices still earns a place among the suppliers we ask first. What every line does need is the four required columns, written so they read.

Most of what goes wrong in a stock list goes wrong inside a cell, not in the choice of columns. The reader is forgiving about separators, letter case and stray spaces, and strict about anything that would put a wrong number or a wrong price in front of a customer. The table sets out, column by column, what reads cleanly and what gets a row set aside.

Two habits cause most trouble. The first is putting a note in a number column: a price cell that says call, or a quantity cell that says plenty, does not read, and the row is set aside rather than guessed. Keep notes in a column of their own. The second is a spreadsheet changing your part numbers as you type them, which the page on part numbers covers in detail; the short fix is to set the part-number column to Text before you paste anything into it.

Upload the file on the form, email it to hello@easyauto.ae, or paste a link if it is over 4 MB. A CSV is read in your browser as you upload it, so before you press Send you see roughly how many lines we found and the column names in your header row. If those look wrong, the file probably has a title row or a merged header, and it is worth fixing before you send.

On our side, a CSV or text file is read whether it uses commas, semicolons, tabs or a vertical bar between columns, and whether it was saved as UTF-8 or as Arabic or Western Windows text. If your program offers UTF-8 when it saves a CSV, choose it: it is the safest choice for a list that mixes Arabic and English. A file whose contents do not match its name, such as a program renamed to end in .csv, is refused by the form. An Excel workbook is read sheet by sheet; keep the list on one sheet, one row per part, because a workbook that keeps prices on one sheet and stock on another cannot be read by a single mapping as it stands.

If your list is a spreadsheet you keep by hand, send the spreadsheet. Before you do, delete any totals row at the bottom, unmerge any merged cells in the header, and make sure the part-number column is formatted as Text. If you keep several sheets for different brands or stores, copy them onto one sheet first, with a column saying which brand or store each row belongs to: a mapping reads one table.

If your list lives in a stock or accounting program, look for the export of the item list or the stock report, and choose CSV or XLSX when it asks. Send that export as it comes out, without editing it. The value of an export is that it comes out the same way every time, so the mapping we save for it keeps working; a file you have tidied by hand once is a file you will have to tidy the same way every time.

If your list is on paper, you have two choices. Photograph each page flat, in daylight, with the whole page in the frame, and send the photos; a person handles them. Or type the list into the CSV template linked on this page, which takes longer once but makes every later update a matter of editing a few cells. Either way, write the part number exactly as it appears on the box.

If the list you hold is a price file from your own supplier, check that its quantities are yours. A distributor's price list tells us what they sell, not what is on your shelf, and offering stock you do not hold is the fastest way to let a customer down.

Many trade lists do not count pieces. Some count sets, such as a pair of brake discs or a box of four spark plugs, and some only say whether the part is in stock. All three work. When we map your file we record which one your quantity column means, so a quantity of 2 in a list counted in sets is offered as two sets, and a list that only says In and Out is offered as available or not.

If you sell only in boxes or above a minimum quantity, say so in the note: minimums are agreed as part of your terms before the first order. If your stock is split across stores and your system prints one quantity column per store, that works too: each column is assigned to its store once, and a row is offered from every store that holds some.

Your price is what Easy Auto pays you for one unit when we order it. Customers never see it: they see Easy Auto's price, which our pricing rules set from yours, and they pay Easy Auto. Customers do not see which supplier a part comes from, and supplier price lists are never published.

Prices can be in UAE dirhams, US dollars or euros, per line in a currency column or for the whole list. When a line is priced in dollars or euros, the exchange rate used is recorded with that line, so the price can always be traced back to the figure in your file. A trade discount can come from a discount column, read line by line, or be applied as one fixed rate to the whole list.

Tell us once whether your prices include VAT, and give your tax registration number if you are VAT registered. That is recorded with your mapping rather than written on every line, so your file does not need a VAT column. Use one decimal style throughout the file: a dot for decimals with commas for thousands, or a comma for decimals with dots for thousands. The reader works out which style a file uses from its number cells, and a file that mixes the two is the one place it can be wrong.

A stock code in your file is treated as a place. The first time we map your list, you tell us what each code means: the main store, a second warehouse, stock held at a branch in another emirate, stock on order. Each one becomes a location on our side with its own readiness time, and every line coded to it is offered with that time, so what a customer is told matches where the part really is.

If you have only one store, you need no warehouse column at all; every line is placed there. If you add a store later and start using a new code, lines with that code are set aside until you tell us what it means, because offering them with the wrong readiness time would make a promise to a customer that neither of us chose.

When we load your file, a line that cannot be sold safely is set aside rather than loaded wrongly. It is not deleted, and the reason is recorded with it, so the cell can be fixed in your next file. Across 17 loads between 14 September 2026 and 29 October 2026, 60 rows of 172,634 were set aside: a handful in a big file is normal. A whole column set aside usually means the mapping needs a second look.

A line set aside is never a judgement about the part. It means one cell did not say clearly enough what the part is, who made it, what it costs or where it is, and the fix is almost always to that one cell.

Send a new file whenever your stock changes, as often as every day. The saved mapping reads it the same way. Send the whole list each time, not only the lines that changed: a part missing from a new file is marked unavailable, so a file holding only today's changes would mark everything else unavailable. Marked unavailable is not deleted, and a part comes back the day it reappears in a file. If you prefer, we can keep a missing part for three days before marking it unavailable, which suits lists that are exported before the day's deliveries arrive.

If a column we read is renamed or removed, the load stops instead of guessing, and the stock from your last good file stays live until we map the new layout with you. Adding a new column does not stop anything; tell us if you want it read.

Old prices are the one thing we will not sell on. A list sent by hand goes stale after 30 days without a new copy, and a file that arrives automatically every day goes stale after 3 days without a new one. Stale prices are shown as stale and are not sold online until a fresh file loads.

If you would rather not send prices, send the list anyway. It is not loaded as priced stock, but it tells us what you hold, and when a customer wants one of those parts you are the supplier we ask first, with the part number already matched. One of the suppliers we work with sends its list exactly this way: as of 3 November 2026, 5,775 lines are held as ask-first.

An ask-first list follows the same column rules as a priced one, minus the price: part number, brand and quantity still matter, and a genuine-number column still widens what it can be found by. The difference is speed. A priced line can be quoted as soon as a request matches it; an ask-first line waits for your answer, so the customer waits too.

A few minutes with the file before you send it saves a round of questions afterwards. The steps below are in the order that catches the most problems soonest.

Some problems show up before you send, in the preview the form gives for a CSV; others show up only after a load. Either way, the sign usually points straight at the cause.

There is no wrong starting point, only a faster or slower one. Pick the row that matches what you have today; you can always move to a better format later, and the mapping is updated when you do.

Sending a list asks for no account, no sign-up and no card on the upload form, and there is no paid placement in the shop today. The terms that matter, how orders reach you, collection or delivery, minimum order, the price basis, invoicing, payment and returns, are agreed with each supplier before the first order and recorded on our side. Until that conversation has happened, nothing from your list goes live.

Three things in a stock list, the price, its currency and the VAT basis in your note, sit on top of UAE tax rules that apply to you as the seller, as they were written when read on 4 November 2026.

The standard VAT rate is 5%. A business must register for VAT when its taxable supplies and imports over the previous 12 months pass AED 375,000, or are expected to pass it in the next 30 days, and may register voluntarily from AED 187,500. Not every supplier has to be registered, which is why we ask for a tax registration number only from suppliers who are.

A VAT-registered seller must issue a tax invoice for every taxable sale and deliver it to the buyer; the Federal Tax Authority says that offering one only if the buyer asks does not meet the rule. If you price in US dollars or euros, the amounts are converted to dirhams at the Central Bank rate on the date of supply, and the invoice must show the VAT in dirhams and the exchange rate used. The rate we record with each of your dollar or euro lines is for our pricing; it does not replace the one on your invoice.

This section is a summary of the law for orientation, not legal advice: the rules are in Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017 on Value Added Tax, its Executive Regulations (Cabinet Resolution No. 52 of 2017) and the Federal Tax Authority's pages on registration and tax invoices, where the Arabic text of each law prevails.